World War I Today

India

Section of a 1906 map of German East Africa from Belgian Congo and Lake Tangayika to the west to the capital of Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean coast. The German colony faced the British colonies of British East Africa and Rhodesia to the north and southwest, Belgian Congo to the west, and Portuguese Mozambique to the south. From Andree's Allgemeiner Handatlas, published in Leipzig, Germany by Velhagen & Klasing.

India, a British colony that included current day (2016) India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, provided 850,000 troops to the British war effort, 49,000 of whom were killed in action. In 1914 and 1915, many of the Indian troops served on the Western Front. They suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March, 1915.

Indian troops fought in the Gallipoli campaign where 1,700 died. But the Indian Army suffered its greatest losses in the campaign in Mesopotamia where over 29,000 soldiers died. A large part of the British force besieged at Kut-el-Amara from November, 1915 to April 29, 1916 was Indian.

Many of the Indian troops were vegetarian. In Gallipoli this served them well, as their diet was healthier than that of the British and ANZAC troops. At Kut, many died, weakened by hunger. Much of the last food available to the besieged garrison was meat from the army's slaughtered mules and horses. In the last week of the siege, Indian soldiers died at a higher rate than British soldiers (21 Indians to 8 British each day). Of the 9,000 who surrendered at Kut, 6,000 were Indians and 3,000 British. 2,500 of the Indian soldiers who survived the siege died in the forced march into captivity or in captivity.